


Red

by hotchoco195



Series: Spectrum [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Minor Angst, Trust Issues, movie canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:12:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotchoco195/pseuds/hotchoco195
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Black Widow doesn't have emotions the way other people do, but she still has some.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

Love is for children. Of all the things she’d said to Loki that was the only one with any real truth. She didn’t love him, not the way it looked in movies, not the way she loved her mother once.

There was something. Some part of her, a tiny remnant of her inner child that idolised him. Agent Barton could have killed her – should have – and didn’t. He saved her. She was torn between gratitude and hating that she owed him a debt.

Since she first came to SHIELD he’d always just been…around. Sitting in the corner making snarky comments, watching her from across crowded rooms, he always gave her this look of reassurance that said it was all going to be okay. That he trusted her. That he’d look after her. Obviously she didn’t need him to, but it was nice that he tried after all the years of being alone. Now he wasn’t around and she found the lack of Hawkeye much too compromising.

She would never allow herself to be truly reliant on another person, no matter how long she was part of SHIELD’s team. Humans were flawed; they were fragile. At the end of the day the only person she could trust was herself. But Barton just seemed to fit, and she’d let him get closer than anyone in a long time. So the idea of him as Loki’s bitch filled her with such rage it was hard to keep from body-slamming the agents that looked at her sideways in the halls of the helicarrier.

He was like a little brother, that’s what it was – an annoying, foul-mouthed, mischievous little brother. She couldn’t help but feel something warm in her chest when he did something predictably immature. Maybe it was because she’d never really had a childhood. She’d missed out on fun. If Clint was anything, it was fun. Not that she’d ever admit it to him as she scolded yet another of his pranks. He’d give her the sad eyes and sigh, but she knew he was still laughing on the inside, and she laughed too.

Natasha stared at the man in the giant glass jar. He still thought he was in control, but she could best him. She had to. There were only so many people that could make her smile like Clint Barton. She didn’t love him, not like love in books, not like fairytales, and it didn’t make a difference.

 


End file.
